


Not Today

by Dragonempress79



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14748539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonempress79/pseuds/Dragonempress79
Summary: I wrote this after my dog died. There's not much else to say about it.





	Not Today

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started writing this back in November but haven't posted it until now because it took me a while to finish and also this past semester was hell. I'd like to hope that you enjoy this but that's not really the sentiment I'm going for.

It wasn’t an especially difficult day, except that I had to take my dog to the vet. We usually tried to avoid coming here as much as we could. The vet was expensive and my dog certainly didn’t enjoy going, but he needed a refill on his new arthritis medication and she’d insisted on bringing him in for blood tests. Apparently these meds could affect the liver but he was definitely doing better on them. The glucosamine just wasn’t cutting it any more.  


The vet came back in after what felt like hours; it was always like that. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” she said.  


“His liver?” I asked.  


“Actually no,” she replied. “His blood work shows that his kidneys are failing. I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do at this point except make him comfortable.”  


I was surprised by this but not exactly shocked. He was only a few months shy of fourteen after all. My boy had been slowing down for years now and it was only a matter of time. But hearing the vet say it out loud suddenly gave it a sense of finality. What had seemed like an inevitability from some vague, if not long off, future now suddenly had a ticking clock.  


“He’s not in any pain,” I said more than asked.  


“No and you would know his quality of life best,” the vet replied.  


Thankfully she left it at that. There was no reason to state what we both understood. He’d be all right for now but his next vet visit would be his last and that day couldn’t be put off for long. But it wasn’t today.  


A couple of days passed and I began to take more notice of things I’d seen but had dismissed, things like the grey around his muzzle and eyes and the dullness of his coat. In his youth my boy had been black all over with only the slightest bit of white on his toes. It was more than going grey though; his coat was duller and thinner than it had been in the past.  


I went over to the dog bed where he was napping and ran my fingers through the long, still dark hairs of his ruff. I stroked from just behind his ears to the tip of his shoulders. Some of his fur was shedding off onto my fingers. He needed to be brushed but that could wait. I pressed my face into his neck and breathed in his smell. I woke him but he didn’t mind; he was used to snuggling.  


He stretched his legs without getting up as he usually did and looked at me. I placed a kiss on his cool wet nose and pressed my forehead to his, supposing that I should make the most of the time we had left together. It was only a matter of time before I had no dog to cuddle with. But for now I still did.  


A day or so later I came out into the yard to find him looking helplessly at the porch. For several months now he hadn’t been able to step up onto the porch. I’d made a set of stairs for him out of cinder blocks for that very reason, though it had taken a while to convince him to use them.  


Right now he was standing in the corner where these improvised stairs met the porch and he was looking confused. He set his front paw on the lowermost step and then took it off again. He looked up at me expectantly, which is when I noticed the cataracts clouding his eyes.  


I began to wonder if I should try to guide him up the stairs or if it would be simpler to just pick him up and put him on the porch. But then he solved the problem himself. He turned away and walked a wide circle then took on the stairs at what passed for a jog at his age. My poor old dog then went up to the back door and scratched at it wanting to be let in. He looked back at me as I approached the door and opened it letting him inside.  


He went straight for the water bowl. He’d been drinking a lot lately and peeing even more. It was to be expected. I went to get him his dinner. After I’d mixed his wet food and his dry food together with his pills I turned to find him patiently waiting in his usual spot. Other dogs barked excitedly when they knew they were about to be fed but not my boy, not even when he was young.  


I placed his bowl in front of him and he began to eat. As he did I couldn’t help but remember the old habit he used to have. When he was younger he would tip his food bowl over spilling his kibble onto the carpet so he could eat it off the floor. He even broke a bowl once. It had been years since he’d done that.  


As he finished his food and went to lie down I thought again of how little time we had left together and just how much he’d aged. I’d have to say goodbye soon but not today, not while he was jogging up the stairs and eating and... happy.  


Days became weeks and he was getting worse. It was getting harder than ever for him to get up and go outside and he was having accidents on the floor as a result. 

This time I managed to get him out onto the porch but not quite into the yard.  


My eye had been drawn to a patch of fence that was taller than the rest. He had to scratch at the door a second time to bring me back to the present. I let him back in the house as my mind returned to the past.  


That particular patch of fence we’d replaced only a few weeks after we’d adopted him. The old fence had collapsed so much that anyone tall enough could simply step over it. The new fence was not only much sturdier but tall enough to come up to my shoulders. However, when I let him off the chain we’d been keeping him on, he simply jumped the fence as easily as if he’d been trained to do it. Money well spent.  


Jumping the fence, always in that same spot, had been another of his youthful habits. He’d take himself for a run around the neighborhood whenever he got out like that. But whenever he did he would always come back home, even bounding up the walkway and “knocking” on the front door. He was ten years old before we could let him outside without needing the chain.  


After a few more days he was refusing to eat. I’d tried everything, peanut butter, honey, boiled hamburger. He wouldn’t do much more than sniff at it. He’d lost so much weight. He’d gotten so much weaker.  


Then the next day he couldn’t even keep water down and I knew it was time. It was Sunday though and the vet’s office wouldn’t be open until tomorrow. We only had this one more day but there was a problem. I had an errand to run that couldn’t wait and I had to go and leave him.  


I felt terrible. As I was walking out the front door he gave me a sad pleading look as if begging me not to go. I promised him that I wouldn’t be gone long and I was back in less than two hours.  


I spent the rest of that day with him, no more than a few feet from his side. I scratched his ears, stroked his fur, all while dreading the next morning. But then, late that evening, he got up and made his way over to the recliner and lay down again. It was one of his favorite spots, where I would sit and he would lay in front of me. After a short while his breathing became labored. I told him it was all right, that he should just rest and then he was gone.  


A couple of days later I pulled out my boy’s old profile picture from the adoption website and I read through the brief paragraph describing how he’d been born in the middle of winter, under a flatbed railroad car, about how he was the last of his siblings in need of adoption into a permanent home. But actually we weren’t the ones who’d found him on that website.  


A friend of my mother’s was involved with the adoption organization and she’d brought him to us to see if we’d be a good fit for each other. I’d been skeptical at first. He was sweet, certainly, but he was also shy to the point of being skittish. When let off his leash he warily explored the house. He looked around timidly until he caught his own reflection in a mirror and nearly jumped out of his skin.  


I looked at the date on the bottom of the page and saw that that had been eleven years ago. For some reason that number felt strange like it was too long and too short at the same time.  


It had taken a lot of love and patience but that timid dog who jumped at his own reflection became my best friend. We became his family and this became his home. He felt the same way I know. Whenever he jumped the fence or got out he always came back.  


A week passed and I was still pretty down. I’d gone to bed early that night. I dreamt that I was at the vet’s office with him at my side. My mother was there too and I looked at her asking does it have to be today? She said nothing, only shaking her head.  


My boy and I went into another, larger room that I didn’t recognize to wait for the vet. The floor was carpeted and there were familiar looking chew toys everywhere. Since when did the vet’s office have carpets and wasn’t that our old denim chair with the rip in the top?  


He and I stood in front of each other. He looked up at me bright eyed and tail wagging. I knelt down and buried my face in his ruff and cried like I hadn’t on the night he’d really died.  


I woke up to find my eyes dry. They weren’t for long though. I cried myself back to sleep.  


It was a month later, a month to the day. I no longer expected to wake up to someone wanting to be let outside or given breakfast. I didn’t bother listening for barking coming from the yard or scratches at the back door. I went days now without opening it.  


I still got a bit sad whenever I looked at the empty space where his food and water bowls had once been or at his old dog bed. I should really through it out but haven’t been able to yet.  


Snow had fallen days ago and it was still undisturbed. On our back porch there wasn’t a single paw print. Food crumbs would fall on the floor and go uneaten and my carpet was free of shed hair. Each of these things still gave me small pangs of loneliness whenever I thought about them.  
I wanted my boy back, but as he’d been before, not as he’d been when he’d left.  


I opened my email to find a message from one of the local shelters. They were having an adoption event. I stared at it for a little while before deleting it.  
I’d probably have a new dog in my life before the year was out but not today.

**Author's Note:**

> Now that I've gotten this out of my system I'll probably return to my fanfics.


End file.
